A Look back at 2009.

At the end of April the MPA held a very successful Governor Recruitment event at Cressex School, in collaboration with the County Council’s Governor Recruitment Department and we were pleasantly surprised when over a dozen people applied to become School governors. This may not seem very much but when you consider that whilst the ethnic minority children make up 20% of the school population in Buckinghamshire, but only 4% of the governors are from the Ethnic Minorities, then this does seem a real breakthrough, which is worthy of being celebrated. Some of those people have been appointed as school governors already.

 

June saw the County Council elections and the MPA organised an ‘Education Quiz’ at the end of May at the Environment Centre, (Holywell Mead) and invited candidates from all the main parties to take part in a panel discussion. The panel was asked questions from the floor and we were very pleased to have Steve ‘Bamber’ Cohen, editor of the Bucks Free Press to act as the chairman.

The meeting was well attended and there were some very interesting questions put to the putative County Councillors and everybody enjoyed the interest in education and the experience.

 

At the end of October the MPA organised a conference when the Schools Minister, Dianna Johnson, MP was the guest of honour, whilst we were also delighted to have the education portfolio holder at Bucks County Council, Cllr Mrs Marion Clayton, Yvette Thomas (Policy and Equalities Manager for Children’s Services), Dr Katy Simmons (Chairman of governors of Cressex Community School) and Adnan Khan.

 

The conference was aimed at not only highlighting the substantial disparity (in Buckinghamshire) which exists in the levels of educational achievement between the Pakistani origin pupils and their mainstream peers, but is also aimed at celebrating the achievement of those of our young people who have done well, given all the obstacles. Through this conference we identified some role models for the current and future school generations, which might help to reduce the achievement gap.

 

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